So ...

[frogbeastegg]

:makes funny whimpering noise: Gah! There shouldn't even be any question over whether I get BI! But there is, and I'm no closer to deciding.

I either buy BI or don't play it at all; I know no one else who plays any of the series. If I buy it I can't return it even if it is the World's Worst Game Ever (which I know it isn't.).

:cough: My expectations for BI are non-existent. Oh, now I feel evil, really mean and evil. I mean more I couldn't scrub up the interest or hope to expect something good, but somehow can't quite bring myself to believe it will be rubbish. I hardly followed the previews and speculation. My demo experiences were, er, well I downloaded it and it sat on my desktop waiting to be installed for a few days. Then I finally decided to extract the zip file and found my primary hard drive was another casualty of the thunderstorm which fried my PC. When that was fixed I ignored it for a few more days, before actually installing it. I played for not even 10 minutes and quit, thinking it was more of the same and a very slow and jerky same at that, which reassured me not the slightest. Now over on .com I see people complaining of performance issues which aren’t there with RTW …

I didn't reach actual disgust until the reaction to the save/load issue first hit. Granted, it wasn't too pleasant on either side, but I didn't much appreciate The Shogun's response on the matter over at .com. Diplomatic it wasn't. Insulting, oh yes.

I did try RTR back around the old 4.0 days, but I didn't like it too much. Regardless of any mod's contents I will be playing a turn or two at once, and so still the AI factions will sit about doing next to nothing all the time. Until 1.3 appears and fixes that issue. But BI fixes it now. And so here we go again; back in the same circle of get or don’t get.

More of RTW I don't mind, even welcome, if it is RTW as it should have been, not RTW as it was. I.e. RTW without the bugs, issues and problems, and with challenge, properly supported, and backed up by a company which doesn't call its customers whiners.

Yes, BI is only an add-on. So was VI, and that really saved MTW for me with its shorter, more focused campaign.

One very small part of me wants to grab hold of the reports of harder campaigns and so on and go buy a copy in my lunch break tomorrow. But I simply can't do it. I can't go it on faith again.

It's really rather amusing, in a way. I've now got far more money than I did when the other TW games came out, yet this is the first time I've been reluctant to part with cash on the series.

[Doug-Thompson]

More of RTW I don't mind, even welcome, if it is RTW as it should have been, not RTW as it was. I.e. RTW without the bugs, issues and problems, and with challenge, properly supported, and backed up by a company which doesn't call its customers whiners.

Yes, this is R:TW as it should have been. That's something I can say without equivocating.

Bugs? Note the lack of "OhNOOOO Horrible (whatever) bug" threads.

Issues? Some. History fans aren't pleased by "Graal Knights" and so forth, but nothing nearly so ludicrous as Egyptian chariots in the 3rd Century B.C.

To me, the biggest change for the better is that infantry, particularly spear-armed infantry, are no longer helpless before the rush of cavalry. It's a major concession to realism.

Challenge? Anybody who thinks this game lacks challege needs to play the Western Roman Empire.

Backed up by a company that doesn't call its customers whiners? I don't care what they call us as long as they concede our points and act upon them.

This expansion game fixes, improves, or at least takes a stab at every complaint about R:TW that can be addressed without fully rewriting the game: Unit speed, jumping horses, broken HA, diplomacy (although the changes are minor and might not be an improvement), balance, predictability, suicidal generals, AI that seemed to lack an instinct for self-preservation, etc., etc.

[Craterus]

Yes, this is R:TW as it should have been. That's something I can say without equivocating.

Bugs? Note the lack of "OhNOOOO Horrible (whatever) bug" threads.

Issues? Some. History fans are pleased by "Graal Knights" and so forth, but nothing nearly so ludicrous as Egyptian chariots in the 3rd Century B.C.

To me, the biggest change for the better is that infantry, particularly spear-armed infantry, are no longer helpless before the rush of cavalry. It's a major concession to realism.

Challenge? Anybody who thinks this game lacks challege needs to play the Western Roman Empire.

Backed up by a company that doesn't call its customers whiners? I don't care what they call us as long as they concede our points and act upon them.

This expansion game fixes, improves, or at least takes a stab at every complaint about R:TW that can be addressed without fully rewriting game: Unit speed, jumping horses, broken HA, diplomacy (although the changes are minor and might not be an improvement), balance, predictability, suicidal generals, AI that seemed to lack an instinct for self-preservation, etc., etc.

Along with what I saw earlier, that has persuaded me.

BRING ON THE FRANKS!!!

[Aesculapius]

Oh, Froggy. I have no opinion at all on BI - it hasn't been released here yet and I haven't tried the demo. But from what you're saying, for goodness' sake buy it and try or you'll spend the rest of your life wondering what it might have been like.

“Make the choice adventurous stranger,
strike the bell and bide the danger
or wonder ‘til it drives you mad
what would have happened if you had.”

[The_Emperor]

If your after more of a challenge this will present it to you.

Compared to RTW this campaign is Hard and slower going. You never know when the next Horde will show its ugly face on your doorstep.

Unrest is a big issue, religious or otherwise.

The Western Roman Empire is itself so weak it practically falls apart like soggy toilet paper before the first Barbarian Horde is spotted over the horizon!

The fact that barbarian factions go Horde on you when you take their last town also adds a whole new dimension to the game... You cannot wipeout a faction with meagre forces anymore when they get 5-6 full army stacks appearing from nowhere.

RTW had its flaws but this has addressed them as best as can be done in an expansion.

For a simple expansion set, I think its done quite well.

[Mongoose]

I wonder how the new AI compares to the one in MTW. are they about the same now?

[Kraxis]

If your after more of a challenge this will present it to you.

Compared to RTW this campaign is Hard and slower going. You never know when the next Horde will show its ugly face on your doorstep.

Heh... As the ERE my entire northwest is basically black with devastation. When I still held control over Campus Iagyzes the devastation was half the lost money for that province. Then the repeated assaults and sieges drained the garrison so much it revolted (and created the Eastern Rebels). Now the Huns have settled there after starving the Rebels out. I moved my garrison to Dacia (and gave the local rebels a good kicking) to have a more secure border.
That was the second time I was thrown out of a borderprovince with no chance of getting it back soon after.

They are sneaky in that the Rebels get a fair army right away, but your own garrison is spared.

[Kekvit Irae]

I finally broke down and bought BI.
I'm so far impressed with what I see.

In one game with the Huns, my Hordes just completely overran Constantinople. However, I do see the problem of Hordes being way too powerful. If you take Britain from the WRE, that will trigger the spawning of the Romano British faction Horde, which will march on London. Unless you are prepared with a huge army, you will be quickly overrun.

Night battles are cute, but I have yet to see one where it's useful.

OMG! Shadows! No longer does marching through a forest look like you are marching through a bunch of 2D sticks in the ground. The shadows of the units and the forests REALLY make it a visual enjoyment.

The difficulty of playing the WRE can only be summed up in one quote:

I almost cried after turn 1.

If you are looking for a good challenge, or at least something refreshing, I suggest picking up BI.

[Puzz3D]

Issues? Some. History fans aren't pleased by "Graal Knights" and so forth, but nothing nearly so ludicrous as Egyptian chariots in the 3rd Century B.C.

How can you say it's RTW as it should have been? Egyptian chariots in the 3rd Century B.C. shouldn't have been. Some of us are still waiting to play a decent RTW campaign, and it shouldn't require mods to do it.


Frogbeastegg,

There is always waiting for the v1.3 patch to see if the game achieves a high enought level of gameplay for you to enjoy it. Major problems such as load/save, suicide generals, cav/spear balance, AI holding a battleline when advancing and concentration of forces on the strategic map do seem to be fixed, but whether or not the long term campaign is a challenge remains to be seen. The reports by players that they can still win battles by huge margins doesn't sound promising because this has a big effect on the ability of the AI factions to present a decent challenge at the strategic level.

As far as MP goes, with all these different units and factions, this game is going to have individual units and factions which are more cost effective than the majority of units, and the only way around it will be to play using rules for purchasing armies.

As far as the BI campaign goes, I haven't seen anyone say it wasn't hard so far. The expansion does look like a solid effort, and I would expect CA to move ahead now with all resources devoted to the next project. I wouldn't expect any dramatic change in the way CA interacts with the community, but it is good to see that major community concerns about RTW were addessed. It just took a whole year to get to this point.